Get a load of this nonsense from a week or so ago: campaigners against fuel poverty trying to prevent the one thing that might bring energy prices down - concentrating on gas.

"Renewable energy would be cheaper but they're refusing to make that transition because their profits depend on gas."...

Elizabeth Ziga, from Fuel Poverty Action, said: "While we freeze in our homes and millions of us choose between heating and eating, the Government is snugly in bed with the big six energy companies.

"Hand in hand, they're plotting to increase our dependence on dirty and expensive gas power, which will mean even higher fuel bills as well as rising food prices due to climate change.

It's a bit of an indictment of the education of these kids that they can't work out that if renewables genuinely were cheaper they would not require a subsidies, feed-in-tariffs and renewables obligations. I really isn't rocket science.

Reader Comments (54)

Spencer also said:

[ ... ] one might object that you really can’t adjust SSTs by subtracting out an ENSO component. OK, then, don’t adjust them. Since the observed SST warming without adjustments is essentially zero, then the models warm infinitely faster than the observations.

The oil companies are generally price takers. It is not a fully functioning free market, but I'm always surprized that people forget who is running the cartel - OPEC. More specifically its Saudi these days. They still have enough clout to set world prices, producing about 30 million barrels per day out of 90 MMb/d. In addition, 80% or so of world oil reserves are controlled by NOCs (national oil companies) so are off limits to Big Oil. So longer term, depending on shale oil growth, the West will still be at the mercy of the likes of Saudi and Russia.

PS - good to see civility in UK blogs vs USA. Canada somewhere in between

Do you have a link for that quote? It does not specify the time scale in question. If he is thinking of the past decade he is probably right. If he is thinking over several decades he is probably wrong.